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by caricari



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Being Crowley (Good Omens), First Time, Gratuitous reverse wall push, Idiots in Love, Just two supernatural entitites, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, New Relationship, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sex, having a bit of a row, then getting it on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:34:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23331733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caricari/pseuds/caricari
Summary: Crowley makes a joke, while out at dinner, and the angel reacts very poorly.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 189
Kudos: 949
Collections: Break in Case of Emergency: Fluff and Love, Top Aziraphale Recs, kashiichan's favourites





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**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys. Thought I'd try something explicit from Crowley's POV, for a change. He's having a bit of a stress, at the beginning, but I promise you all a happy ending. Enjoy!

_Set about six months after the world did not end..._  
.

“I’m just saying, nobody in their right mind chooses that. It’s people who have tricked themselves, cruelly, into a world of-,”

“Crowley, you can’t say it's trickery, dear, you can’t. It’s a choice. Humans make choices. And sometimes they are not choices we might understand, but-,”

“-boredom and Latin and vile, early mornings,” the demon continues, anyway. 

He’s not listening to Aziraphale’s side of the argument. This serves to infuriate the angel and make his own end of things even more palpably enjoyable. There is nothing better than Aziraphale riled to the point of gesticulating with cutlery in a posh restaurant. Nothing.

“Oh, you are being quite unreasonable,” the angel pouts, across the way. 

Crowley takes a deep draught of the wine his friend had chosen, earlier that evening. It has begun to taste suspiciously like a Malbec he had tried a few weeks ago and enjoyed immensely. Wine has that way, around him. Seeks out his approval. Always has done. 

The angel, not so much. 

Aziraphale is waxing lyrical about free will, now, and their argument about whether or not monastic seclusion falls under the category of ‘self-flagellation’ or ‘piety’, has fallen by the wayside. They’re onto predestination and fate, and they will never agree on that, Crowley thinks, running the tip of his tongue against the cool rim of his wine glass. 

They will never agree on half of the things they argue about, but they will continue to argue over them anyway - over and over again, until the end of time. And isn’t that brilliant, he thinks. Isn’t it wonderful that he’s got someone to argue with, until they’re both nearly crying with exasperation, then fall into laughter with the very next minute? Forgive all sleights. Get drunk. Move on. Continue to explore the wonders of the world and find more things to argue about. 

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, as he makes some point. There is a smudge of red wine against the corner of his mouth, Crowley notes. He’s taken a sip slightly too large, and not remembered to dab his mouth in that fussy little way he does, because he’s too absorbed in their conversation. And it makes the demon’s mouth stretch out, wide enough to show pointed canine teeth, because that’s down to him. Aziraphale is distracted because of _him_. 

There is ownership in being able to command someone’s attention, like this. 

“What is it?” The angel frowns at him. “You think I’m wrong, do you?”

Crowley’s mouth opens. He’s about to tell his pompous friend that, actually, his point is so irrelevant that he’s stopped listening entirely, but the waiter appears at his shoulder at that exact moment, and the pair of them stop squabbling to look up. 

“The bill, sirs,” he places a small plate between them. Well, not quite between them. Far more towards Crowley, actually. 

“Ta,” the demon grunts, not looking up at him.

“Thank you, dear,” the angel beams, twice as sweet, to compensate. 

Crowley pulls the plate towards himself as the man strides away, twisting one of the small mints between his fingers and scanning the numbers on the small scrap of paper. 

He can feel Aziraphale eyeing him, across the table. 

“Think a lot of themselves, for a place that gives penny sweets with the bill,” he mumbles, folding the paper back over and sliding it back into the black folio. 

The angel gives himself a prim little adjustment. 

“I can cover it, if you-,”

“Don’t be daft,” the demon rolls his eyes. “S’not what I meant.”

“No really, Crowley, you always get dinner.”

“Yeah, well, they always give me the bill, don’t they?”

“Yes,” the angel frowns. “It is odd, that.”

“Not really.”

The angel tilts his head. “I- what?”

“Well, you know…” Crowley gives a little smirk. “Bit of a hetero-trope. They see the two of us and they assume that we’re… that i’m…” the words peter out. He can’t quite bear to tease Aziraphale about it. It’s just slightly too close to the bone. Giving another tiny chuckle, he shakes his head. “Never mind, angel. Don’t worry about it. Dinner’s on me.”

“Right.” 

There is a silence between them, for a couple of moments. Crowley reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a wallet and slides a credit card onto the plate on front of them. It is unmarked, save for a discrete number printed along the back. It doesn’t belong to any bank but it makes him feel extremely cool and mysterious, whenever he uses it. And it will pay for dinner, because he expects it to. 

Leaning back in his seat, he scoops up the now nearly-empty wine glass and polishes off the rest of the Malbec as the waiter appears at his side, swipes the card, then melts away again - the whole process going miraculously quickly.

“Fancy a drink, then,” he asks, turning to the angel, “or is it back to the shop?” 

Aziraphale is watching him with marked coolness in his eyes. 

“Shop, please.” 

“Want to pick up a bottle, to take back?” 

“No need. I have plenty at home.” 

Crowley gets the distinct impression that he’s being reprimanded, for something. He’s not sure what. Best not to react, right away, he decides. See how it plays out. 

“All righty, then,” he leans down, picks up the umbrella that has been sitting against the leg of his chair. “Shall we?”

“Yes. Let’s.” 

There’s still a frostiness in Aziraphale’s voice, but the demon knows there’s no point in asking what’s wrong, yet. The angel will just brush it off and maintain that he’s fine. He always needs to stew for a good long while, before he can build up enough pressure to vent. 

“Good that it’s stopped raining,” Crowley chirps to himself, then, as they emerge from the warmth of the restaurant into the chill of the evening. It is fresh outside, that after-rain smell clinging to the spring air. “Warming up, too. That’s one more winter done and dusted…” 

They walk over towards the car, Aziraphale a few paces behind, which is unusual. Usually they walk the other way around. Demon following angel. 

“Considered hibernating right through this one, you know,” Crowley continues, trying not to be put off by his companion’s lack of response. “Nice big long sleep from December to April. Love a good nap, me. Can’t be doing with January. Or February, as a matter of fact. Rotten months. All wet and cold, and dark… S’like being back down below.” 

He reaches the car and wanders over to the passenger side, pulls the door open. It makes no noise. It is well oiled, well maintained, and seeks approval from the demon as much as wine tends to. Leaving it propped open, he wanders back around the rear of the Bentley to the driver’s side. 

Aziraphale watches him for a few long moments, then clambers in. 

“Decided against it, eventually,” Crowley lilts, continuing with his monologue against the rising unease in the air. “There was going to be a vintage car convention, up in Cambridge, and they were releasing a remake of one of my favourite films. So, I decided to stick with it.”

He slides into the driver’s seat and turns the engine over, feeling a familiar pull of pleasure as it roars into life, the car trembling beneath them. 

The road is miraculously empty of traffic and he pulls out through the lanes with ease - slide in amongst the regular slew of taxis and busses of a Friday night. The street lamps are on, overhead, and they bathe the interior of the car in an ebb and flow of gold as the Bentley glides along, through the north of the city, heading south towards the centre and the bookshop. 

“The film comes out next week,” he tells Aziraphale. “We should go. It’s a thriller, with lots of car chases and shooting, to lend weight to the protagonist’s moral argument.” He shoots a grin over at the angel, who continues to stare straight ahead. “You’d hate it.” 

“Well, why _bother_ inviting me, then?”

Crowley looks back out, through the windscreen, feeling suddenly a lot more sombre. 

The little snap is unusual. Aziraphale will often huff at sleights but he’ll always bounce back, after a minute or two. He has always taken Crowley’s teasing in the spirit with which it is intended. That pubescent you-make-me-feel-funny-and-i’m-not-quite-sure-how-to-deal-with-it sort of spirit. The demon doesn’t mean anything by it, most of the time. The angel is his best friend. He has never wanted to see him in distress. Even at the height of their worst arguments. The ones that concerned demon-melting holy weaponry, or world-ending children. 

“It’s just a bit of fun…” he mumbles. 

Silence hangs between them. 

They drive until they meet the intersection of two main roads and take a left. Then Crowley swings the car down, through the ever-busier streets, the buildings growing taller around them. Holborn passes in a haze of long windows and small green squares. And then he’s crossing Oxford street and pulling into the maze of alleys and roads that makes up the angel’s little enclave of Soho. The signs of the restaurants and bars are illuminated. Their windows bright with colour. 

It’s only half past nine. Usually, at this point, he’d park the car up and they’d wander off into the warren of lights and sound and humanity. They’d find some table, or booth, or corner of a bar, and drink their fill; talk nonsense until the wee small hours of the morning. Sometimes they’d find somewhere dark and private enough that Crowley could drop the shades. Other times, they’d sit right out in the middle of everyone, but the focus was only ever on each other. The way the neon lights catch in Aziraphale’s eyes and the rise of Crowley's cheeks. The way the demon smiles slowly at the punchline of a story. The way the angel becomes more animated, with every one of his silly little cocktails. 

He’ll get a bit giggly, after three. After five, he’ll let their feet rest together under the table. Just the tips of them. Or at the ankle. And Crowley will watch him, and smile, and drink only single malt, because he likes how he looks when he orders it at the bar. 

Not tonight, though. 

They pull up to the bookshop as a small troupe of humans wander past, laughing uproariously. There is an adult woman and two younger ones, a teenager of indiscriminate gender, and an older male. Their arms are around one another and they’re laughing at some joke the eldest has said, and Crowley looks at them and wonders, vaguely, why She gifted humanity with this and not them. That easy ability to bind themselves into one another, to make big sprawling families, find connection across generations. 

Demons aren’t like that. Angels aren’t like that. They had all been made at the same time. Or made in several groups, anyway. Thrones and seraphim and cherubim, all in groups, over the space of millennia - made to serve and create and defend. Adopted siblings of a distant Mother. Then, the principalities and guardian angels later, made for Earth and her people. 

He’s a lot older than Aziraphale, Crowley thinks, glancing sideways across the car as he twists the key to kill the engine. Not that that means much, for creatures such as them. Time hadn’t mattered, before Earth. Things had been eternal. 

They’re the same age, in earth years. Not that means they understand one another any better, he thinks, looking over at the angel. 

Aziraphale is still staring straight ahead with distance in his eyes. 

“Well,” the demon clears his throat. “Here we are, then.” His words are greeted with silence. It stretches for five seconds. Then Crowley tries again. “You going to invite me in?” 

“If you want,” his friend replies, coolly.

“If I want?”

“Yes.”

A pause. 

“…I don’t want to be there if you don’t want me to.”

“I never said that.”

“Well, you’re hardly denying it, now.”

“You can come in, if you like, Crowley.”

“I’m not asking myself over,” Crowley scoffs. “That’s just…” sad, pathetic, desperate _,_ “rude.”

“Oh, yes, because heaven forbid you admit you actually want to be there.” 

“I-,” the demon stares. “Uh-.” He stutters when he’s nervous. All the words blur into one another, making a mockery of the English language. He hates it. It happens every time. “I don’t know what you-, what I-…” 

Aziraphale turns his head, fixes him with a somewhat challenging stare. 

“What do you _want_ , Crowley?” 

They stare at one another for a full ten seconds, then the demon blinks and begins to stutter again. 

“W-what do you mean, what do I want?” He gives a sharp little exhale and looks around, as if searching for an answer in the immaculate interior of the car. “Angel, I don’t get it.” He’s pissed off, now. He had been worried and confused, before, but now he is pissed off, because he has no idea why Aziraphale is acting so irritably. It couldn’t possibly be that stupid conversation they’d been having, back at the restaurant. “Just tell me what I’ve done and I can apologise.”

Aziraphale exhales heavily and turns away. Then, he pushes the door open and climbs out into the street. 

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter…” 

He closes the door with a snap, leaving Crowley to stare after him, blankly. 

As the angel moves to the edge of the pavement and waits for the traffic to clear, Crowley just stares. He’s confused. He’s confused and pissed off, torn between letting his friend leave and climbing out after him and causing a scene. His instinct is to stay quiet and let this all blow over - to just see Aziraphale again in however-many weeks, once he’s calmed down a little. That’s what he would have done, before. 

But this isn’t before, the demon thinks, anger sparking in his belly. Things are not the same as before. They can’t be. They’ve been through too much together to be still in that place - burying the sharp bits, walking away from the difficult conversations. 

“Fuck,” Crowley mutters to himself, then he’s pushing his way out of the Bentley’s front seat and into the road, swearing again under his breath at a moped which nearly knocks him off his feat. “Fuck!” Then for a third time, just for good measure. “Fuck - Angel, wait!”

Aziraphale falters, with his fingers resting on the doorknob of the bookshop.

"Aziraphale!" Crowley jogs up behind the angel, sees his face turn slightly, the tip of his nose catching the light. 

They’re less than ten inches away. He wants to close the distance, to wrap a hand against the back of that neck and palm the downy hair at its nape. He’s always fantasised about touch. Undefined need rushes just below his surface, most days. But he can bear that. He’s always been able to bear it; make do with the touches they share to keep up the appearance of humanity. The handshakes and clasps of shoulders. The occasional hug. He's never wanted to risk them by asking for more. 

“What the Heaven did I do?" He asks. 

“Crowley, don’t. Just leave it." Aziraphale fusses with a key in the lock, still looking resolutely away. 

They are a little closer than they usually risk, the demon notes, and the tension is unveiled between them. It is a different tension to that accidental warmth of late, drunken nights together, where the angel lets himself watch Crowley openly - as he never does when he’s sober. Where they end up sitting with their feet touching, ankles crossed, fingers brushing occasionally over food or drinks, or stories. This is different. Something sharper. Harder. 

“What’s wrong?” Crowley asks, voice as soft as he can manage. 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Don’t be stupid-,”

“Oh yes, because that’s me, isn’t it?” the angel snaps, and Crowley’s eyes widen slightly to hear the venom in it, the real frustration. “Your stupid friend, who always misses the joke.”

He leans back an inch or two, surprised. 

“Wh-?” 

“Has it ever even vaguely occurred to you that that’s not what I want to be? That I don’t want to be your stupid friend?”

Something half frozen flows through Crowley. Ice-slush emotion, that fills him from the feet up. He swallows as it reaches his lungs, soaks around his heart. Memories echo, from a few months before. ‘ _We’re not friends’. ‘I don’t even like you’. ‘There is no our side_ ’. Those were lies, though, he tell himself. They were all lies. Aziraphale had said as much, that night after the failed Armageddon. They were friends. They are friends. He knows he can’t have misread all of that. 

But… maybe he has. He’s never been good at reading the angel. He’s an expert at human emotion, at interpreting and manipulating their wants, but Aziraphale has always been a bit of a conundrum. He’s never been open with Crowley. Everything about them has been subtext. Admissions of care, hidden in metaphors and actions. 

Perhaps this has all been an act of convenience, the demon thinks, now. A false bond, that doesn’t need to exist now that they are on the other end of the almost-end. Perhaps, free from Heaven, Aziraphale wants to move on with his life alone. He doesn’t need Crowley anymore, after all. He never really needed him in the first place. Crowley has always been the one to hang around, to press his company, to slink into the angel’s space and demand. Dirty, needy, slithering thing that he is.

The hurt must show on his face because Aziraphale’s expression shifts, slightly. Softens.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t be dramatic…”

And a flood of relief washes over Crowley, paired with a surge of anger - because how the Heaven was he to know that Aziraphale hadn’t meant it like that?

“Well what the fuck do you mean, then?” He demands. “Are we friends, or aren’t we?”

“We’re friends. Of course we’re friends.”

“Right. Then what do you mean?” 

“I just meant…” they stare at one another for ten seconds or so. Aziraphale’s eyes dart between his, slightly over-bright. “Do you really have no idea?” 

“Of course I bloody don’t - you won’t bloody tell me!”

The softness flees the angel’s face. He turns sharply to the door, cheeks flushing, mouth very tight - that tightness that tells the demon he’s not far from tears. 

“Its fine,” he mumbles. “It doesn’t matter.”

The door opens and he pushes his way inside. The warm, dusty air of the bookshop brushes Crowley’s face as he forces himself through, afterwards. 

They perform an awkward little tango in the entrance way - circling around one another, while trying not to touch. Aziraphale’s hand is still on the doorknob, his eyes still resolutely not on the demon, who has turned to face him now that he’s over the threshold. Everything in angel’s body language is screaming ‘go away’, but Crowley is pissed, now. He’s feeling distinctly hard done by - not at all convinced he’s done anything to warrant such punishment. The relief of Aziraphale telling him they are still friends is only mild consolation. 

“Listen, why don’t you just tell me, since it clearly does matter, to you.”

“Only to me."

“Yes, well how is supposed to matter to me if I doesn’t know what the bloody hell ‘ _it’_ is?”

“It’s not important.”

“Well, it clearly is, and I’m not a bleeding telepath, Aziraphale. If we’re friends, aren’t we’re supposed to talk?”

“Why break the habit of six thousand years?”

And that does it. 

Crowley has always let himself be pushed away, before. He’s never called Aziraphale on it, when the angel has been distant or cold, because he’s never dared to do anything that could threaten their tentative friendship. But things are supposed to be different, now. The sharp edges of them have been exposed. Their failures and their greatest triumphs. They saved this world, together. Surely they can manage having a bleeding conversation? Surely, Aziraphale can trust him with that, at least?

He reaches out for Aziraphale’s shoulder, but the angel shrugs him off, so he takes a step forwards, instead, positioning himself in-between his friend and the safe interior of the bookshop. 

Giving a little ‘huff’ of impatience, Aziraphale tries to side-step, but the demon mirrors the movement. The angel tries the other way. Crowley reflects again. Then, as Aziraphale rolls his eyes, the demon finds himself irritated past the point of endurance. Throwing caution to the winds, he grabs the angel by the lapels and pushes him roughly back, towards the door. 

The satisfaction that comes from the action is short lived, however. 

Before they reach anywhere near the door, there is suddenly a hand at Crowley's shoulder and another at his hip and he’s being twisted around and thrust back against the panelled wood, himself. 

He gives a yelp of surprise. 

The movement hadn’t hurt. The position isn’t painful. He just suddenly, absolutely cannot move. He is pinned, his shoulders pressed to the doorframe by Aziraphale’s hands on his chest. They are like leaden weights - impossibly, impossibly strong. And something in Crowley’s belly is quivering, not sure if he’s frightened or aroused. 

Both, he decides, squirming unsuccessfully against his friend’s grip. It’s definitely both. 

“Aziraphale-!” 

“You did this,” the angel murmurs, his words breathless and harsh, the tip of his nose just an inch away from Crowley's.“You did this to me, back at the convent...” 

The demon makes a small, disbelieving noise. 

His hands have lifted to Aziraphale’s forearms, fingertips clutching at him, through the fabric of his coat. The angel’s right foot has trapped his left against the skirting board. He can only move one leg, but he doesn’t dare. That leg is pressed into Aziraphale’s and, if he moves it any wider, the angel’s thigh will fall in-between his, and that would be just the end, because he’s starting to get a little hard, from the effect of being manhandled back against the door. And he would never live that down, if the angel noticed. Never. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid useless idiot - why is his body doing that, now?_

“You were holding me there and I thought, just for a second…” Aziraphale drifts off, wide pupils tracking the lines of Crowley’s face in the darkness of the bookshop. “But that’s okay, for you, isn’t it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“It’s okay for you. It’s expected, isn’t it? You are the Great Serpent, after all, sent here to take from the world.”

The great serpent scoffs. 

“What is this? Role play?” He curls a lip. “Do you want me to show a little fang, Aziraphale?” He considers doing it - sliding into his snakeform and twisting free. But he doesn’t. Mostly, because he isn’t sure he will be able to access his powers, with Aziraphale pinning him like this. “Going to try and cast me out of this world?” he blusters, instead, flashing pointed canine teeth. 

The intimidation tactic doesn’t work. 

Aziraphale continues to pin him against the door. Unrelenting. So impossibly strong. 

“You know I wouldn’t, though, don’t you?” he mutters, eyes darker than Crowley has ever seen them. “You know I’ll just stand here. That you can say whatever you like and I’ll never hurt you. I’ll just continue be here - your stupid friend.” 

They are so close. 

Crowley’s fingers are still clutched into Aziraphale’s coat, balancing the push of his friend’s palms. And his thigh is trembling because the muscles are held vice-like and tense. Instinct is screaming at him to tilt his hips forwards and taste a bit of relief. He’s definitely more than halfway to hard, now. His trousers are growing markedly uncomfortable and he’s really hoping that Aziraphale doesn’t look down, doesn’t move that leg. He’s really, _really_ hoping that there’s a moment after this where he can cast a quick spell and sort himself out. Because he’ll never live it down, if the angel notices. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid demonic thing to do. Why is he such a twat?_

“I don’t think you’re stupid, you idiot,” he hisses at the angel, feeling Aziraphale’s fingers tighten into the front of his shirt. 

“You put me in this neat little box that says ‘angel’, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, a strange edge of desperation in his voice. “Where I’m separate to the rest of everything. It doesn’t even remotely occur to you that I might want the same things as other people. The same things you do.”

“What the Heaven is that supposed to mean? You _are_ an angel.” Crowley whines. “Is this some metaphor, or-,”

“I know what you were going to say, you know, back in the restaurant,” Aziraphale cuts in. 

“What? All that guff about monasteries?”

“No, you phenomenal ass, the bit about how people see us!”

And something clicks into place. 

Crowley stops attempting to squirm free. Stares down at his friend. _That_? That’s what he’s been so pissed about?

He almost laughs. Relief flooding through him.

“For Satan’s sake, Aziraphale…” His lips are pulling back into a grin. He can feel some of the panic abating. “It was just a bloody joke… I didn’t mean anything by it.”

And Aziraphale’s eyes are searching his, the anger in them mixed with something else. Hurt, perhaps, the demon thinks. And the things that had clicked into place, begin to settle a little further. 

_Oh._

Ideas start to link together. Little parts of the angel’s outburst are beginning to make sense, with context. And the grin is sliding from the demon’s lips. 

_Oh. Right._

“I… I didn’t…” he blinks at the angel.

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t save him. Just stares up, eyes a bit wet, expression a bit defiant. 

“Hey…” Crowley’s grip loosens on the angel’s coat. He’s not squirming to get free, anymore. Not angry. “Angel, when I said that stuff, I didn’t mean that I was, like… embarrassed, or anything… about people assuming that about us.” He flushes, slightly. ”S’not what I meant… It was just a stupid joke, about human presumptions.”

Aziraphale holds his silence, but one hand slowly lifts from Crowley’s chest. He places it carefully against the wall, instead, just to the left of Crowley’s shoulder. The movement moves his body infinitesimally closer, the tip of his nose missing Crowley’s by less than an inch, as he turns his head. 

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” the demon murmurs. 

Aziraphale does not answer. 

He looks hurt and embarrassed. Crowley knows that the next thing to come out of his mouth is going to be some self-deprecating comment about having brought the whole thing up. He can feel it stirring. Aziraphale has lived a long time in self denial and guilt. He is not good at this. Neither of them are. 

Slowly, carefully, Crowley releases the fabric of his friend’s coat. Reaching up, he pulls his dark glasses free and shoves them roughly into his pocket. (This feels like a moment for proper eye contact). Then, very cautiously, he slides his hand down to rest against the front of the angel, feeling the rapid patter of Aziraphale’s heart, beneath his ribs. 

It is such a strange thing, he thinks, that they consider themselves a part of these bodies - that their metaphysical emotions and wants have come to be interlaced with their physical reactions. Aziraphale’s heart beats faster because he’s feeling awkward, and afraid, and hurt. Crowley’s skin is tingling slightly, blood still resolutely rushing to his cock, because he wants to press himself against his friend, seek comfort through closeness. He’s lived in darkness all of his life and he wants relief. He wants the warmth that Aziraphale radiates. And, more than all of that, he wants the angel to want him there. 

_And maybe… just maybe…?_

“I’m being silly,” Aziraphale murmurs and makes to pull away, but Crowley curls the tips of his fingers into the pocket of his waistcoat, holding him there.

It is a subconscious action, and it surprises them both. The angel glances down, then up at his face, quickly. The demon feels his cheeks flush. It’s an admission of need and they don’t really do that - not overtly, anyway. 

_Don’t go. Stay._

“Talk to me,” he mutters, swallowing back the need to add something sarcastic onto the end of the statement, to make it out that it doesn’t matter whether or not the angel does. That he’s fine either way. It’s cool. It was just a suggestion. 

Aziraphale looks back up at him and they are so close. 

“I just…” he looks pained, as if he’s having to fight to draw the words to his lips. “Crowley…sometimes I don’t want you to see me as just your stupid friend, who doesn’t get the joke.” 

“That’s not how I see you.”

Aziraphale gives him a pleading little frown. 

“Okay, it’s not _always_ how I see you. Though, you are my friend, and you did miss that one about the three knights last week, which I feel was kind of laid out for you.” He swallows the rest of the nonsense forming on his lips - bites it back, shoves it down. It’s not appropriate, his brain hisses. The angel is trying to have a serious conversation. Don’t be an ass. “How do you…” he begins, instead, all of his inner workings seeming to turn to jelly, at the prospect, “how do you want me to see you? If not as my friend?”

“I didn’t say ‘not as your friend’,” Aziraphale replies, quickly. “That’s not what I meant, at all.  I want us to be friends. It's just that, well, sometimes... sometimes I want more, as well."

"More, as in...?"

“Crowley…”

The angel sometimes sighs out his name, in exasperation or frustration, and the demon pretends that he’s hearing it under different circumstances. Pretends that his friend is breathless and wanting, pressed up against him. Because wouldn’t it be just incredible if they could share everything, in this world?

They are the closest thing to family either of them have ever had. They love one another, and trust one another, and have shared all of time together. And the idea of going to anyone else, for sex, started feeling completely ridiculous many years ago - for the demon, at least. It’s been hundreds of years since Crowley has yearned for anyone but Aziraphale, in that way. Not that he’s lived a monk-like existence. He’s got a good imagination, after all.

He crawls into that imaginary world, when he needs to. Finds some willing human with bright watercolour eyes and pale expanses of skin, and lets them tempt him back to their bed. In his imagination, their movements are familiar, the timbre of their voice is comforting, and they burn warmer than mortality. In reality, however, they are just fragile creatures experiencing their own fantasy. (Crowley can be whatever they need him to be, after all. He’s made for temptation. He’s made to fill the void inside each of them - to let them explore secret sides of themselves).

He lives in that world, when he needs to. Revels in it. Soaks up all of the comfort that he can and stores it away for the months or years until the next opportunity. Then, he slinks out on his human stand-ins and never sees them again. 

He always avoids Aziraphale for a week or two, afterwards, just in case something of it shows up on his face. Because Aziraphale is good at reading him. Knows him better than anything. Even knows that Crowley loves him. The angel has just always assumed their love is restricted to the metaphysical. And Crowley has always assumed that was all Aziraphale wanted… but now… 

_Wouldn’t it be just incredible if they could share everything…?_

He licks at the inside of his lip, shifts slightly on the spot. 

“Show me,” he murmurs, and the fear of saying it tingles inside his mouth, making his tongue feel too thick and too heavy. “Show me how you want me to see you.”

He has to ask, because he can’t get this wrong. This is a delicate moment and, if it’s not what he thinks it is, well, he might as well pack his bags for bleeding Alpha Centuri because Aziraphale will never speak to him again. Ever. 

His angel seems to be having a similar internal monologue. There is fear in his eyes and they have darted more than once to Crowley’s mouth, but he’s not moved. They’re just hovering an inch or two apart. So, Crowley curls the fingertips that are resting in the pocket of his friend’s waistcoat slightly. A gentle tug. 

“S’okay,” he murmurs. Because it is. If this is going where he thinks it’s going then it is more than okay. It’s fucking fantastic. 

But don’t-, he threatens himself. Don’t get your hopes up. Calm the fuck down. He probably just wants to discuss some new book, or a manuscript about monasteries, and this is all about that stupid conversation back in the restaurant, after all. And you’re going to look like such a tit if you-, 

Aziraphale’s hand tightens slightly, on his hip. Then, he’s leaning in. His head tilts, mouth finding Crowley’s, and then their lips are meeting. And it’s completely weird, because it’s _Aziraphale_ , but it’s also bloody wonderful. Their lips are parting and meeting, and the angel is slightly wet, inside, and very warm, and he tastes like good wine and dark chocolate. And pretty much everything that resembles thought grinds to a halt, inside of Crowley’s mind. 

_Fuck…_

They kiss for five glorious seconds, then draw back and look at one another. 

“Ngk,” the demon says, concisely, as the angel’s eyes lift, to make a nervous revolution around his face. “Right… Okay…”

There is a long silence. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale whispers. 

“No, uh-,” Crowley wants to say something. He wants it to be right, but he can’t summon a single bloody word to his mind that isn’t some random combination of consonants. 

“Crowley, I’m sorry,” the angel makes to pull back, away. “I shouldn’t have.”

“No, no-no-no-no-no,” Crowley grabs on to him, a little desperately, a little stupidly. “Don’t go. You can’t just fucking kiss me, and then fuck off. It’s not fair, angel… not cool-, you can’t-,” he gives a soft little noise of distress. “Just fucking, fuck, just… stay,” he blurts. “Just stay, _please_.”

Something soft trails through Aziraphale’s expression, temporarily banishing the fear and awkwardness, and the demon feels his cheeks heat. He feels his mouth wanting to add another ‘fuck’, for emphasis, but manages to restrain himself. 

The pair of them watch one another, the moment blooming in a succession of rapid heartbeats.

“Listen,” Crowley eventually exhales, after ten seconds have passed in stunned silence. “We’re okay, angel. We can do that, if… if that’s something you want?” 

It’s the worst proposition he’s ever heard and that tears at him. He wants better words. Wants this to be beautiful, like something out of Aziraphale’s books. He wants it to be perfect. But it’s him. So, it’s going to end up being a bit shit, really - a garbled, broken up version of a real thing.

The angel’s eyes are fixed on Crowley’s, looking wet and very hopeful. 

“Is it something _you_ want?”He asks the demon, softly. 

“Y-yh-yeah, it is.” Crowley’s head is spinning. He can’t find what he wants to say. Just speak, he hisses at himself. Just say something. Use words. Whole words. Better words! “Sss’been a whole thing, you know?” He exhales, shakily. “Been a thing for a while, now, actually. And…” _Jesus christ_. “Well, I love you, you know?” 

_Oh, God, just kill him, now._

But the angel’s face is slowly filling with a smile. And he’s not turning away. Not running. He’s just giving a sniff, the wetness from his eyes pooling into one beaded drop, which slithers down the curve of his cheek. 

“I know that, dear,” he’s saying, softly. “I just was never sure, if-,” He looks down at his hand, pressing into Crowley’s collarbone. “I was never sure if you loved me in that way. I mean, there have been a few moments, over the years, where I thought there might be something. But I was never sure if I was making up, in my own head... I mean, we've never-,” his eyes flicker back up, cheeks pinking, then drop back down to his perfectly manicured fingertips. “We’ve never done anything like this, before."

“Well…” Crowley lets out a long breath. He’s already made a complete disgrace of himself. He might as well continue. “Brave new world, isn’t it? We could give it a try… if you liked?”

Aziraphale still looks slightly unsure. 

“I do think about you that way,” the demon admits, voice very quiet, now - barely more than a whisper. “Think about you that way rather a lot, actually.”

“You do?”

_Frequently. Vividly. Sometimes completely inappropriately._

“Yeah.” Crowley nods. “Have done for a while.”

“And you’d really want…” Aziraphale’s eyes drop to his mouth, then lift back up again, to his eyes, his cheeks pinking at the thought. 

Crowley stares, lost for words. Then, the solution to his inability to express himself comes to him, suddenly. They’re not good at talking things through. Never have been. He wants to get to place where they are, one day, but for now he’s willing to work with what they’re used to - where actions have always spoken louder than words. 

“Kiss me, again,” he blurts, awkwardly. 

Aziraphale blinks. 

“Pardon?”

“Just kiss me.” 

“Now?”

“Yeah, go on.”

“…okay.”

And he does.

Leaning in, the angel presses his mouth against Crowley’s. So softly. So tentatively. He’s having to stand up, on the balls of his feet, to match them up - and that realisation warms Crowley, in a way a demon shouldn't warm. 

He leans down, easing the distance between them as he deepens the kiss. Tilting his head, he leaves his lips slightly parted as he takes his next breath, inviting his friend’s tongue forwards, against his own, and Aziraphale seizes the opportunity. They brush, and sigh, then kiss again. And again. Then, the angel pulls his head gently back and they part. 

They stand, gazing at one another a little breathlessly. 

“See?” Crowley tries for a smile. “It’s good, right?”

“Yes…” Aziraphale looks a bit dazed, but the unease is finally sliding away from his features. “I mean, it’s good for me.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s good for me, too.”

“It doesn’t feel odd, that it’s me?” His hand, at Crowley’s shoulder, is absently stroking the demon - the movements seemingly involuntary, compulsive, needy for more contact. “It isn’t strange?”

“Course it’s strange,” Crowley lets out a tiny rush of a laugh. “Angel, we’ve spent six thousand years not kissing and now we’re kissing. It’s going to be a bit strange, at first, isn’t it? But that’s… that’s normal, right?” he gives a tentative grin. “S’not _strange_ -strange. It’s not, bad-strange.” 

He’s babbling but Aziraphale doesn’t seem to mind. His lips are curling into a tentative smile and, as they stare dazedly at one another, his inhibitions seem to fade away. Sliding a hand around Crowley’s neck, the angel leans back in and then they are kissing, again. And it's soft and warm and brilliant. Crowley finds himself sighing, muffled, into the angels mouth. 

“Mmmh… fuck.” 

His words prompt a tiny laugh, from Aziraphale. From _Aziraphale_ , whose fingers are pulling him closer, whose warm soft skin is in his mouth, whose scent is surrounding Crowley like sunshine.

“Still good?” 

“Mmm’yeah… yeah…” 

And they are gaining a bit of momentum, this time, the blood rushing in Crowley’s ears. The angel’s kisses are growing faster and more sure, and the demon is starting to feel dizzy, but he doesn’t pull back. Aziraphale will keep them upright, he thinks. The angel’s arms are braced either side of him, fencing the pair of them off from the rest of the world, and the demon feels secure, bathed in the angelic power that is friend is emanating. He feels elated.

The angel seems a little giddy, too. He keeps shooting shy little glances up at Crowley, between kisses. And, though the demon tries to look cool and collected, during those moments, he suspects he might just have ended up grinning stupidly back at Aziraphale, instead.

They're both being a bit silly, really, Crowley thinks. It's just kissing. Just rubbing their mouths together and exchanging a bit of saliva. Weird thing to do, really. But it’s not ‘just’ kissing, at the same time. It’s not just kissing because these bodies are not just vessels that they cart themselves around in, anymore. They’ve spent six thousand years in these bodies, and how they touch means something, now. 

It means all the feelings that are pouring through their minds. It means the weight in the air, as Aziraphale pulls him breathlessly closer. As Crowley slides his fingers into the angel’s hair. As their stepping together brings the angel’s thigh between his legs and the demon lets out a little groan. 

“Oh-,” Their mouths separate, Aziraphale blushing as he glances up. “Well, I suppose that answers that question.”

Crowley cringes, trying to shy his hips away but finding himself trapped against the doorframe.

“Fuck, sorry-," 

“No, no, it's fine.” To his surprise, Aziraphale isn’t pulling back. Isn’t showing disgust. If anything, he looks pleasantly flushed. 

Crowley swallows. 

“Didn’t mean to."

“It’s fine.”

“It’s just all very-,”

“Honestly, Crowley, it’s fine.” He's smiling, softly. "You don’t have to apologise.” 

“Got a bit wound up…” More than a bit, actually. His cock is about as hard as it’s ever been, pressed lewdly up against his left inseam. And the angel. “What with the whole wall push thing... and it being you…” 

“Me?”

“Yeah…”

Aziraphale continues to lean gently into him, one hand resting against his side, fingers toying with the fabric of the demon’s shirt. There is no disgust, in the lines of his face, no revulsion. So, maybe, thinks a little voice in the back of Crowley’s mind - just maybe, this is okay.

He chances a glance back up, to meet the angel's eyes. 

Aziraphale gives him a soft smile, as if he’s been waiting for the eye contact to speak. 

“I’ve always wondered, you know?” He admits, still not pulling away, thigh still resting between Crowley’s own. “You've always flipped back and forth between genders and I never knew if you kept things the same, or switched it up.” 

“Eh… I switch, mostly,” Crowley answers. “Not always, though. Bit capricious. You know me.” 

“I do.” Aziraphale smiles. He does. 

“This… this is okay though?”

“This is ideal,” Aziraphale smiles indulgently up at him. Crowley feels a flutter in his stomach. “You’re ideal, really.” 

“Oh… Right.” The demon swallows. “…thank fuck.” 

And Aziraphale’s smile is stretching into a little laugh, and his head is dipping in and they are back to kissing, again. 

The angel is very good at kissing, the demon thinks, his brain warm and liquid. He’s very, very good. To be fair, Crowley doesn’t know why he would ever have supposed Aziraphale wouldn’t be - he’s well-practiced at putting things in his mouth, after all - but he supposes he didn’t think he’d would be _this_ good. But he is. He’s fantastic. 

That tongue, which Crowley has endured watching lick cream from the edge of his lips, and spoons, and fingers, is licking back against Crowley’s tongue just enough. Just a tease, a little taste, a little warmth - drawing Crowley nearer. That pink mouth is pressed up against him and it’s soft, it’s gentle, but it’s also demanding. And they are good, the demon thinks. They are so good… 

And all thoughts of dignity are dribbling away. Crowley is clutching shakily at his friend as they stumble back into the wooden frame of the door, as Aziraphale continues to lean gently into him, and there are tiny, involuntary noises happening - disgusting, embarrassing, mewling little noises. If he could spare a single brain cell, Crowley would be absolutely mortified to realise that they are coming from him, but he can’t. He can’t spare even half a brain cell. He’s fully consumed by the idea of getting as close to his best friend as he can.

“This okay?” The angel asks, breaking their embrace after a good five minutes up against the door frame. 

“Nng’yeah… yeah…” Actually, Crowley’s legs are starting to feel a bit shaky. His eyes sweep the room, searching for a flat surface. “Can we, I dunno… sofa, or something?”

Aziraphale flashes a beatific smile.

“Absolutely.”

“M’kay… right…”

They stumble across the room, knocking over a small table and a coat stand in the process. Crowley hears the former crash down, sending a stack of papers thumping to the floor, and some mystery metal object rolling away, under the bookshelves. 

“It’s fine,” Aziraphale is laughing, between kisses, “Don’t worry about it, dear boy, I’ll sort it later.” 

And Crowley finds himself laughing, too. Doesn’t know why. It’s all just so surreal and he’s so glad he’s here - wandering dizzily backwards as the angel directs him with a hand at his hip. He has no idea which way they are heading. He just hopes that the sofa will, at some point, catch him and - thank Someone - it does. 

They arrive with slightly too much pace, knees are hitting the edge of the sofa and folding them down - a mess of limbs and desire. And then Aziraphale is leaning into him, kissing him back against the cushions. And Crowley is sliding his fingers through the angel’s hair, fighting to bring them closer. And his mind can hardly process it all, because it’s so fucking weird - it’s him and _Aziraphale_. It’s completely bloody mad! But it also feels natural. It doesn’t feel forced. Doesn’t feel wrong. It’s just him. And Aziraphale. Kissing. And Crowley trusts the angel. He’d trust him with his life. And-, 

_-_ Okay! _Fuck._

There are hands sliding up the back of his shirt, palms warm against his skin. And the angel is asking if that’s okay. And it is, Crowley thinks. It is okay - it’s so okay that he’s trembling as his friend’s hands fall back to his belt, sliding the buckle free. 

“And this?” 

“Yeah… yeah.” Between kisses. “S’fine.” 

And then he’s sliding his own hands down the front of Aziraphale, tugging buttons free from his waistcoat. (They’ve lost jackets somewhere, en-route, and Crowley is missing one of his boots - though he’s not entirely sure where. Nor is he sure how Aziraphale has managed to thread his belt away quite so effortlessly). He’s a miracle. He’s brilliant. He’s fucking amazing. He needs to touch Crowley soon or the demon is going to discorporate.

“This is lovely,” Aziraphale is breathing, between their increasingly frantic kisses. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Mmh-,” more frantic kisses. Heartbeats soaring. 

“…it’s incredible that we’re doing this.” 

“Mmmnh.”

“Can you believe we’re doing this?”

“Nnng’yes, angel,” more kisses. “Only bleeding imagined it about ten million times.” Their mouths meet, over and over again; a beautiful, endless repetition - some echo of the perpetual turning of the world. Hard kisses, wet kisses. Hands searching. Grasping. Needing. “I have wanted to do this-,” Crowley tilts his head, nose pressing into the soft skin of Aziraphale’s cheek, “on this ridiculous, ugly sofa-,” 

“Hey!” 

“-for such a ridiculously long time.” 

Aziraphale pulls his head right back. 

“You have?”

“Yeah.” 

They stare at one another, panting. Crowley really wants to say something clever, but his brain is being sluggish. It’s working on almost-empty, because all of his blood is currently pooling in the parts of him that are shoved up against the underside of the angel’s thigh. And isn’t that mind-blowingly fantastic, he thinks, panting dizzily. Isn’t it great that they both have these physical bodies that can drive their immortal souls to distraction? Isn’t it brilliant that Aziraphale wants to do that together? Isn’t it fucking amazing? 

“You’ve really imagined kissing me, on this sofa?” The angel asks, looking surprised and completely exhilarated. 

“I’ve imagined doing significantly more than kissing you, on this sofa,” Crowley admits, lacing the statement with just a tiny hint of intention.

To his relief, the angel’s grin spreads wider. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” _Fuck_. Okay. Here goes. “I could…uh… show you, if you’re up for that?” 

“Show me?”

“Yeah. Just fool around a bit, I mean,” he hastens to add. “We don’t need-, I’m not expecting-, I don’t want to presume-,”

“No-,” the angel interrupts, shyly. He’s flushed but eager, and his voice is surprisingly calm. “ I’d like to, actually. I mean, I’d like to fool around a bit. And, well, I’d like more, actually. If you’d be amenable to that? I… I know we both have sex, after all. And, well, it’s something I enjoy very much.” 

Crowley’s brain stalls, heart and lungs all ceasing to function, for a moment. Abstractly, he knows that Aziraphale has sex, but to hear him say it - to hear those words actually fall from his lips - makes it real in a way that abstract doesn’t. 

“I suppose, I see it as an expression of love,” the angel continues, before him. “And… it’s something that I’ve wanted to share with you, for a very long time.” His cheeks have flushed pink. Like two round apples. Crowley wants to push his face against them. Wants to bite, kiss, suck. “If it’s something you’d like to share, too, then I’d like to give it a go. It's as you said; brave new world, and all.” He smiles, nervously. 

The demon can’t breathe. 

He swallows, desperately trying to regain some composure. Start his heart up again. Reset his brain. 

“Yeah.”

“Are you… in the same place, with this?”

Crowley is not sure exactly what place Aziraphale is referring to, but he’s incredibly ready for them to be pressed up against and inside of one another, so he’ll get there, he decides. He’ll get anywhere, to keep Aziraphale wrapped with him, on this sofa. This is beyond what he could ever have dreamed for, tonight. So far beyond… It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. 

“Yeah. S’good,” he tells the angel, ineloquently. “I am.”

There is a little pause between them, a little moment of quiet observation. 

“I’ve imagined kissing you on this sofa, too,” Aziraphale admits, into it. 

“Yeah?”

“Quite a number of times.” He bites at his lower lip, a bit absently. “I’ve imagined kissing rather a lot of you on this sofa, actually. Very nearly all of you, if I’m honest. Perhaps…” his eyes flicker over Crowley’s. “Perhaps you could show me what you've imagined and I could show you mine?”

_Oh… wow. Okay._

“Yeah…” Crowley breathes out slowly, eyes on Aziraphale’s green-blue. Five seconds pass in silence. Then, some deep instinct kicks in and forces the demon on. Because he’s not buggering this opportunity up - no matter how useless and awkward he might be. This is Aziraphale. “Yes,” he nods, repeatedly. “That. Definitely that.” 

He tries really hard to make the words come out all light and smooth, but he’s not sure it hits the mark, because Aziraphale’s little smile slowly grows until it’s a full blown grin. Then, he gives a little rumble of a chuckle. 

Crowley flushes. 

“Oh, shut up…”

The angel lifts a hand, tracing fingers down his face. 

“I’m sorry. This is just… it’s perfect.” 

“Don’t say that,” the demon mutters, half to himself. “I might be rubbish.” 

Aziraphale looks distinctly disbelieving of this possibility, which leaves Crowley touched but also a little bit worried. Because what if he is rubbish? He’s never actually asked for a critique, before. It had never really mattered. And he’d always assumed that quantity of experience, had given him a distinct advantage, in this arena. But he doesn’t have that advantage, here, he thinks, eyes tracing over the angel. Aziraphale has been around for just as long as he has. And Crowley suspects he’s dabbled in sex for longer. What if Crowley actually is rubbish?

“You’ll be you,” Aziraphale smiles, thumb stroking the indent under his lower lip. And the softness in his eyes soothes the demon. “We’ll be us. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” and Crowley finds it is. It really is okay. 

"Kiss me again?”

“Kay.”

Crowley leans back forwards. Far too eager. They bump noses as they come together, but it is all forgotten in a rush of laughter and the feel of Aziraphale’s soft fingers, at his jaw. 

Then, they’re sliding their bodies back flush and Crowley is burying his face in the angel's neck, breathing him in. His belly feels tight and desperate, and his skin is tingling, because one of Aziraphale’s hands has slid beneath the waistband of his jeans and he’s whispering how beautiful Crowley is into the demon’s mouth - and it is all a bit much, really. He has fantasised about of this happening for such a very long time and, now it is, he can barely process it all. 

He wants to slow it down and make it last forever. 

He wants to rush - in case it is all a dream and he’s about to wake up. 

“Angel, angel, angel…” More than anything else, he wants to stop bloody talking, because he’s mumbling that stupid pet name, over and over and over again, like it’s some sort of prayer. But he can’t. His lips won’t stop moving. “Angel, angel…”

_He’s such a prat._

But he’s happy, with his fingers tugging the front of the angel’s shirt, pulling buttons free - fumbling the last one so he can steal an extra kiss. He’s happy, with his palms flat against the planes of Aziraphale’s belly, against the muscle beneath the softness of his chest. He’s happy because Aziraphale wants this. Really wants this. He’s said as much, with actual words - and his body is saying the same thing, now. He’s hard and eager, inside his stupid, outdated trousers. Crowley can feel him pressing up, into the hand he’s sliding down between them. Wanting this. Wanting him. Crowley’s beautiful, strong angel. 

And he is strong, the demon thinks, sliding his hand back up, thumb finding the divot of a navel. How could he have forgotten that, over the years? Aziraphale, who came across so soft and gentle, had been made to guard the gates of Eden - to defend it against any who came to harm her. He is strong enough to take on any celestial opponent. To pin Crowley against a wall. To hold him there, unable to move. The demon might like to try that again, sometime, he decides - to have his back pressed against some flat surface and the angel pressed up against him. Powerless. He might like that quite a lot. 

“Crowley, will you help me with these?”

“Hm?” Aziraphale’s words jerk him back from his thoughts. 

The angel’s hands are tugging at his waistband of his jeans, his eyebrows slightly raised as he gazes up, and the demon takes a full five seconds to figure out what he means. Then he does, and nods his head. 

Taking his weight into his arms, he lifts his hips, trying to help his friend push the fabric down his thighs. The move doesn’t work quite as expected. The jeans get stuck halfway down and - though the demon does a little wriggle to try and help - they’re tangled and off-balance, so Crowley just ends up slipping sideways, off the sofa. 

It’s not very smooth, but that doesn’t matter, as it turns out. Aziraphale manages to catch him, before he hits the ground, then lowers the demon the rest of the way down, laughing gently. And then they are both laughing, because the whole situation is nothing like how either of them expected the night to end - Crowley half dressed on the floor, trying to kick himself free of his jeans and one remaining boot. But it’s so much better. It’s fucking wonderful. 

And then Crowley’s boot is finally coming free, and so are his jeans, and he’s down to just his pants, the angel is pulling him back up onto the sofa and guiding him down on his back - and they aren’t laughing, anymore. Aziraphale is leaning over him and their faces are inches apart, their eyes full of one another, and the situation isn’t funny, anymore. It feels rather serious, actually. The air seems to weigh more, all of a sudden. 

“Can… can I take these off?” The angel asks, fingers hooked into the waistband of Crowley’s second-best pair of pants. 

“Probably for the best,” the demon nods, breathless, beneath him. “They’re going to end up a bit of a mess, if you don't.”

Aziraphale smiles, fleetingly, then lifts one hand and clicks his fingers. The black lace vanishes. As do the rest of his own clothes. 

And Crowley definitely isn’t laughing, now. He’s staring up at Aziraphale with something that closely approximates awe. Because the angel is naked and beautiful. And he lets out this strange ethereal glow, when he’s really into something. It’s not a physical glow, it’s something _more -_ and he’s doing it now, as he traces his fingertips down the dark flash of hair that runs along the centre of Crowley. He’s sort of _resonating_ , as his hand spreads out, flattening across the demon’s hipbones. 

Then, glancing back up, as if for courage, Aziraphale flexes his shoulders and folds his wings out from the ether - a great, pale flourish - and that just about ends it for Crowley, then and there. 

“ _Fuck_ , Aziraphale-,” 

His friend swallows, eyes travelling over him. 

“Sorry. Is this okay?”

“N-nng.” Crowley nods. 

“Oh good. I just wanted it to be the whole of us, you know? Well, as whole as we can be, on this plane…” The angel licks at his lip - pale and naked, and framed in white. _Nervous_. _Beautiful_. “You?” 

“Y-yeah. Okay.” Crowley shivers as his wings manifest, spreading out behind him. He feels his body and reality stretch, to accommodate them. “ _Ugh_ -,” he gives a strangled little swallow. “S’been a while.”

And it has been a while. He cannot remember the last time they both had their wings out, in this plane of reality. And he definitely can’t remember it having happened while both of them were naked. The experience is intensely intimate. 

Aziraphale reaches out, rests a hand on his knee. 

“So, what do you like?”

“You.” It starts out as a bluster, but it fades into something soft and sincere, along the way. “Only you, really.” 

The angel smiles, and then he’s leaning closer. 

“In you, or on you, dear?” There is a lilt to his voice - a first foray into seduction. “Because I’ve imagined this both ways and either would be perfect.” 

“Uhhh…” 

Crowley clears his throat, and swallows, because he’s fine. He’s _fine_. He can cope with Aziraphale saying those things. Out loud. With his soft, pink mouth. He’s a demon. He’s cool. He’s done this before.

“In me,” he mutters, very quietly. “Please.” 

_Please? Oh, for christ’s sake…_

The angel quirks an eyebrow.

“Well, if I’d known this was all it took, to hear your manners-,” 

“Shut up.”

Crowley's cheeks flush, but wave of shame he expects to wash over him never arrives. Which is odd, really. He’s spread out before an angel, stark bollock naked, and he’s leaked a truly embarrassing amount of fluid onto his belly in just the minute he’s been lying there. It should be cripplingly embarrassing, to be seen like this, only it isn’t. Not really. Because it’s Aziraphale… and Aziraphale has already seen him in all the ways there are to be seen. 

He’s carried Crowley home from inns, paralytically drunk, as far back as fifty centuries ago. He’s fixed his scrapes and bruises, and rubbed his back while he vomited, on long sea journeys. He’s given up his bedroll so that the demon can have extra padding, while travelling on horseback, and rescued Crowley from the stupidest of situations. He’s listened to the demon vent his wildest ideas and, no matter how much of a prat Crowley has been, he’s always come back. Nothing had ever phased him. Not the demon naked, or broken, or sick. Not even his worst days - the days that Crowley is ashamed to remember. The worst things he did, on behalf of his Hellish masters; the darkest moments of humanity; Aziraphale was there, through all of it. He was always there. 

He will always be there, the demon thinks, reaching up and touching his friend’s forearm, tentatively. They’re going to keep travelling through this crazy world, together, sharing in all of it. And now they can share in one another, too. And isn’t that rather brilliant, he thinks. Isn’t that wonderful? 

“It’s only fair that I get to tease you, sometimes,” the angel tells him, picking his way carefully over Crowley’s body. “You do spend half of your time teasing me.” 

“It’s well under half. Less than a quarter, if we’re going to get precise about it…”

“Mmm.” 

“And you can’t tease a man when he’s naked, angel. It’s bad form.” 

“You’re not a man, though, are you?" The angel is smiling, sliding hands underneath Crowley’s hips and scooping him gently closer. “You are a very beautiful man-shaped demon.” 

“ _Ugh_ -,” he pulls a face and makes a half hearted attempt to squirm away - but he’s not really trying. He just likes the way that Aziraphale’s fingers close around his hip and draw him back in, again. “Don’t be disgusting.” 

“Oh, you signed on for this,” the angel tells him, making a remarkably good effort at keeping a straight face. “I refuse to accept that you didn’t see any disgusting endearments coming out of this arrangement.”

“I didn’t see any of this coming, to be fair,” Crowley admits, gazing up at him. 

“Now, that,” Aziraphale smiles, leaning closer, “I do believe.”

Crowley stares up at him for a few seconds, experiencing far too much emotion for his own good. Then, he gathers himself and lets out a heavy sigh, rolling his eyes. 

“Come on, angel.” 

And they are together again, kissing and pressing their bodies closer. Then, the angel’s hands are sliding underneath his hips and he’s pulling his mouth away from Crowley’s, to press kisses against the underside of the demon’s collarbone, and then his chest, and then the shallow of his belly. 

He seems to know that going anywhere near his cock is going to lead to Crowley becoming a quivering, sticky mess, so he restricts his attentions to the sides of him. Lapping against the sharp edge of hip bone, sucking on the dip of his waist, kissing the soft space under his ribs. He makes it all the way up to the pink-red underside of a nipple before drawing back and tapping a hand on the outside of Crowley’s thigh. 

“Over, sweet boy?” 

“Nnn-gh,” Crowley flashes a pointed canine tooth as he twists himself over, shifting up onto his knees and throwing one wing and an arm over the back of the sofa for support. Then, before he has time to think about how fucking stupid he always feels, presented in this manner, the angel is leaning in, behind him. A strong hand is stroking over his hip, then up the outside of his ribs. 

“Is this okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Lean back.”

“Kay.” He gives a slightly shaky, very un-demonic sigh as he lets himself be gathered back against Aziraphale’s chest. He can feel the press of Aziraphale’s cock, on his inner thigh, can feel the angel sliding a hand between them to smooth something wet over his skin. He’s shaking, slightly, at the thought of it all. Overwrought, but in the best possible way. "This is going to last all of five seconds,” he mutters darkly. 

Aziraphale makes a soothing little noise and kisses the back of his shoulder. 

“Honestly, I'm a complete fucking mess. Might have to-,” Crowley mimes clicking his fingers, but Aziraphale makes a little noise, and shakes his head, hair brushing against the demon’s ear. 

“Don’t, darling. It’s fine. I’d like it to be just us, this first time.”

“Okay…” 

“Unless you really want to?” 

“Nah…” Crowley rolls his eyes. It’ll bruise his ego, but he can deal with that. “It’s fine. I’m being dramatic. Just… don’t laugh too loudly. Alright?” 

He feels a soft exhale against the back of his shoulder, feels Aziraphale smile. 

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“It is one,” the demon admits. Then rolls his eyes again - completely at himself. 

_Soft, useless demon._

He’s a bit soothed by the way Aziraphale had causally mentioned ‘this first time’, though. It makes him think that there are going to be more times. Possibly many more times. Many opportunities for him to cut a more impressive figure - to seduce the angel back to his flat, perhaps, and shower him in all of his favourite things, and then sit in his lap and kiss and tease until Aziraphale is whimpering his name in the way Crowley has always wanted him to. 

Aziraphale traces one hand along the top of his wing, face buried in the crook of his neck. 

“Uh… You want me to-?”

“Mmhmm.” 

“Okay…”

He’s less nervous, when it comes to action. He has done this countless times, after all. There are three ways that it works, for Crowley. One way involves magic. One involves fingers and the ability to sheath himself over someone, afterwards, in a fairly impressive manner. And then there is this way, which involves a great deal more trust. 

It requires someone who won’t go too fast, who will be patient and gentle - and he’s got that, Crowley thinks, mind reeling slightly at the thought of it. He’s got his best friend between his legs. His best friend, who he trusts, more than anyone. Who he loves, more than everything. And this way will feel best, for Aziraphale, Crowley thinks. And that matters, to the demon. It matters a lot. 

He presses back, feels the tip of Aziraphale’s thumb behind the blunt, hot press of him - holding himself steady. 

“Yeah?” He asks, one last request for confirmation. 

And the angel is nodding into his shoulder, eager and breathless. 

“Show me, dear. Show me what you’ve wanted from me.” 

_Fu-uck…_

They join themselves over an indefinite stretch of time, leaving Crowley’s corporation beaded with sweat and shaking, slightly. He’s still whispering ‘angel’, under his breath. Can’t help it. Because he has an angel, there, between his legs, breathing raggedly into his shoulder. He has an angel. His own perfect, beautiful angel.

Rocking back onto him stings, at first, but not in a bad way. Just in a slightly over-full way. And that’s okay, with Aziraphale’s arm wrapped around Crowley’s side and the angel's belly pressed into the curve of his spine. His friend is solid and strong, and patient. He feels like he’d stay there, forever, if the demon asked him to - that he’d cradle Crowley endlessly as he drew his body forwards and pressed it back, as he arched and soothed them into a gentle rhythm, where each stroke was punctuated with a sigh. 

He is definitely not going to take forever, though, Crowley thinks, as he does those things - as his head drops back with the pleasure of the little movements. Tension had begun building in his spine they moment they began to move. His skin feels stretched across his body, every nerve pulled tight. He doesn’t dare touch himself, even to give himself a squeeze and lessen the sensation. He’s hovering right on the very edge of control. 

In the end, however, he’s not the first to break. 

They only last a minute or two before there’s a soft whine against his neck and his friend’s grip tightens, against him. 

“Crowley, darling, I-,” 

“Shh…” He reaches over his shoulder, fingers sliding into familiar untidy hair - softer than he’d ever imagined, any of the ten million times he’s lived this moment out, in his mind. “S’okay,” he murmurs some reassurance, some words which don’t make much sense. (It is only the soft repetition of movements between them makes sense; sending fire up their nerves, firing pleasure in their brains, creating ecstasy in the deepest, most secret parts of their souls). “It’s okay, angel… It’s okay, it’s okay…”

And then the hand at his wing is pulling him down, anchoring him as Aziraphale flexes up. And the angel is moaning Crowley’s name, nestled in a string of endearments, and then he’s shuddering to a halt, and everything is hotter and wetter, and the demon is so on edge he can’t blink. He wants to see this through. He wants to let the angel finish, before his body clamps down, but he’s not sure he’s going to last. His toes are already curled over the edge of the cliff. He needs-, the angel needs-,

It doesn’t matter, in the end. He doesn’t have to choose. 

Giving a soft groan, Aziraphale slides a hand around the front of him and palms his cock flat against his belly - choosing for him - and he fractures. 

He splits down the seams of his iron-clad control, hissing as the intolerable tension peaks - a pleasure so defined that it’s almost pain. Then, his eyes fall closed and his body arches, sending him back, against the angel. And he’s whimpering, crying out, the tendons in his legs trying to scythe their way out of his skin, they’re so tight. Everything is so tight - clenched around the centre of him, and around the entrance of him, and around Aziraphale. And then the crest of it is over and he’s falling into the deep trough of relief that comes after. 

He gives a compulsive shudder, feeling the last hot surges of pleasure leave his body - spilling into the soft cradle of Aziraphale’s fingers. The angel is still holding him against his belly, gentle but firm. The pressure is perfect. How is he so perfect? How is he so brilliantly perfect? He’s even sliding his hand further down, as it all becomes to much and Crowley begins to shudder. He’s so good. So good… So good…

The demon draws a sharp breath in. 

His heart is racing like he’s taken something wildly illicit. Meanwhile, the rest of him might have dissolved into something less than a solid. He can’t feel his toes, he thinks, as sense begins to filter back into him and his eyes open a crack. His skin is tingling, flushed. He feels boneless, formless, shifting. He’s sagged back, against Aziraphale, with absolutely zero ability to hold himself up on his own volition, his wings are folded around the pair of them, just under the angel’s - a shadow, slightly offset. 

How fucking amazing is it that they do this, he thinks, heart still trying to break out of his ribcage. How bloody brilliant is it that they can be transcendental beings but also have bodies, and mouths, and hands, and cocks. How fantastic is it that they can share that stuff together? Maybe they can share the rest of this Earthly life, too? Wouldn’t that be incredible? 

To share space and sleep together, and wake up together in the morning. To do what they’ve just done, together, over and over and over again. To tie their hands with strips of cloth, or bind their fingers with rings, or sign their names - in human tradition. To claim one another in everyone’s eyes. Out in the open. Their own side. He’d like that, he thinks. 

It’s probably silly, to crave that sort of mortal domesticity - but then it’s also silly to fall apart over the ability to ejaculate. And here he is. Completely apart. In Aziraphale’s arms. 

_God, he really is a shit demon…_

A hand reaches up, brushing his cheek. 

“Are you having a moment, in there?” Aziraphale asks, softly, against his temple. 

“…big fucking moment,” he pants, breathless, rolling his head to one side to try and meet the angel’s gaze. He doesn’t quite succeed, because they are entwined too closely. He only glimpses a tiny sliver of sea-coloured iris, and that network of fine lines at the corner of his eyes, which tells the demon Aziraphale smiling. Then, his friend turns his face, pressing it into his neck. 

“Good fucking moment?” 

“Hah!” A triumphant laugh rises through Crowley, grin splitting his face at the reality of his angel wrapped around his naked body, swearing into his sweat-soaked skin. If he were any less dizzy and tingly, he would come up with some clever retort, but he isn’t, so he can’t. He just tightens his thighs against Aziraphale’s, instead, and winds his fingers tighter into the angel’s dishevelled hair. 

A minute, or so, passes in comfortable silence, their heart rates slowing, before they speak again.

“You okay?” 

“Yeah. Good…” Crowley's breath is back under control, now. His heart is still thundering away, but it is a manageable sort of ecstasy - and more than a little due to the fact that they are still clasped around one another. 

The demon gives the tiniest stretch, feeling their bodies shift as one. He’s always secretly kind of enjoyed this part - though he’d never admit it (that would be far too soft). There’s something nice about not pulling apart and cleaning up, right away. There’s something safe about an afterglow. Especially this one. Far better than any fantasy, he thinks, as Aziraphale strokes his thigh. 

“Well… that was a thing…”

“Yes. We were rather good at it, weren’t we?” the angel breathes against him. 

“We’re two naturally talented entities.” Crowley shifts his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder, flashing a bit of a grin. The angel shifts his own, this time, so they can watch one another better. "I imagine we'd be good at most things we tried, together.”

The corner of the angel’s mouth twitches. 

“Blessing, tempting…” 

“…drinking,” Crowley suggests.

“Saving the world…” 

“…defiling old sofas.” A slightly pained expression flits across Aziraphale’s face. “Oh, don’t fuss,” the demon rolls his eyes. “I’ll clean it up, in a minute.” The lines on Aziraphale’s forehead smooth and he smiles, watching Crowley in that way the demon associates with praise. “You made me see stars,” he murmurs, feeling a little wobbly inside, for a moment - just weak enough to allow himself to sound like an idiot on purpose. 

“And break a window,” the angel smiles back. 

The demon frowns. 

“Eh?”

Untwining one arm, Aziraphale points over at the top panes of the window over his desk. Fogged from condensation and by centuries of grime, the glass is almost opaque. The only thing vaguely discernible through it are the street lamps - which is why Aziraphale has never bothered with a curtain. He might have to bother with a glazer now, though, the demon thinks, eyes tracking a thick crack that runs through the top four panes of glass, bottom left to top right. It looks a bit like a lightning bolt - some organic force applied with the sound of a whipcrack. 

“Blimey. That was me?” he asks, turning back to the angel, incredulously. “Really?”

“Yes.” 

Crowley looks back at the window. 

“Never done that, before.” Never come that hard, before, he thinks. 

The words don’t make it out his mouth, but the pinking of his cheeks perhaps gives the game away - because Aziraphale’s lips curl into a very smug little smile. 

“Oh, shut up…” 

“I didn’t say anything, dear boy.” 

“Don’t get a big head. You had the advantage of a fair bit of build-up.” 

“Of course. Absolutely.” 

“Hm.” 

Physics is very much against them, by this point. Aziraphale isn’t so much inside him as pressed against him and they’re both profoundly sticky. Pulling himself gently forwards, Crowley separates them and clicks his fingers, summoning a towel to wipe off the worst of it. Meanwhile, the angel bends over the arm of the sofa, fishing around for a blanket. 

He’s lovely, the demon thinks, scooting back against the other end of the sofa and pulling his feet up on front of him. So lovely. Strong and warm, plush and perfect. He gets this little line over his hip, when he leans over, and another just on top of his navel - and Crowley wants to trace along them with his tongue and his fingers. He wants to slide his mouth higher, and feel the change of texture in the skin around his friend’s flushed pink nipples. Does he like that, the demon wonders? He doesn’t know. He barely knows anything about this side of Aziraphale,. He hopes he gets the chance to find out. 

“Ah-hah!” The angel snags a woollen throw and drags it back up. 

There is a slightly awkward moment as they both sit, naked, at opposite ends of the sofa, then Crowley - realising that this is going to become his role - tilts his head, and beckons the angel over. 

They arrange themselves side by side, legs and wings tangled, just close enough for Crowley to slide one arm behind Aziraphale’s shoulders. The other arm goes down between them, hand under the blanket, resting in the top of the angel’s thigh.

_He fucking loves those thighs. Would sink ships, raze cities, build worlds for those thighs._

They sit like that for a good few minutes, arranging bits of themselves so they can press closer, sliding fingertips over the familiar-unfamiliar ground of one another’s shoulders and necks, and faces. Occasionally leaning in for a kiss. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, when they’ve drawn back from their third kiss - a kiss which could only really be referred to as singular because of the fact that neither of them needed to separate, for periods of more than five minutes, to breathe.

“Hm?” 

“I was thinking…”

_Ah, fuck..._

“Yeah?”

The demon rests his cheek on his shoulder, tracing a circle through the downy hair above the angel’s left knee. This is fine, he tells himself. He can handle this conversation. He wants to handle this conversation. He just needs to keep his head. 

“What does this mean? I mean,” the angel’s bright eyes swing between his own. “For us?”

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…_

“What would you like it to mean?” Crowley asks - in what he considers to be one of his very finest displays of calm. 

“Oh, I don’t know, really.” 

The angel is blustering, Crowley thinks. He might know what he’d like it to mean but he’s afraid of saying it all out loud. Aziraphale doesn’t know any more about this side of Crowley than Crowley knows about this side of Aziraphale. They’ve always kept these parts of their lives separate, for obvious reasons. So, it’s all new and a bit frightening.

“I suppose… I suppose I thought that, maybe…” Aziraphale bites at the inside of his lip, then seems to lose confidence. “Maybe, more of this… more time spent together…” Dropping his eyes, he looks down at where his fingers are resting, over Crowley’s sharp hip. He looks downright terrified. “I want more of you, Crowley. And I know you have your own life, I know it’s greedy and presumptive, but I just can’t seem to help myself. Just as I couldn’t help myself tonight. I know, by all rights, I should be the one wanting to take things slowly. It is always me snapping at you, for going too fast. Always me running away…” He gives a worried little frown. “I just wanted this so badly. I never meant to push you into anything - and I hope I haven’t… I was just so happy that you wanted this, too, and I needed more of you, and-,”

“Hey-,"

The demon shifts forwards, pushing his forehead into the angel’s temple, pressing his mouth into his cheek. 

“You didn't push. Tonight was perfect. This is perfect.” 

Aziraphale quiets, underneath him. The tension in his shoulders softens, a little. 

“We don’t have to go at anybody else’s speed.” He closes his mouth, brushing the softest kiss against the angel. It feels odd, because he’s never done that before - never kissed someone in comfort - but it also feels right. “You can have more of me, Aziraphale. Anytime you want.” He tilts his head, catching the angel’s gaze to include him in a smile. “Any way you want, too…” 

“My dear, that’s not-,” 

“Not what you meant.” He gives a little sigh. “I know.” 

They stare at one another for a long moment, and Crowley wishes he was better at this bit - that he had better words, was more whole of a person. 

“Joking aside,” he tells the angel, softly, “I do mean it. You can have more of me. You can have all of me, if… if that’s something you’re interested in?"

Aziraphale’s brow furrows.

Crowley exhales slowly, then forces himself on. 

“I’m not trying to be pushy, or move too fast, or anything - but I want you to know where I stand.” 

This part is difficult. It is a conversation about emotions and vulnerability and Crowley hates talking about those things. He hates it. Every time he’s done this, before, he’s ended up getting hurt. Just don’t ask, that little voice, at the back of his mind, is telling him. Don’t ask for anything. Keep your wants out of it. Just let the angel lead. Accept. That’s the way you’ve always worked, before. 

But they hadn’t worked, before, the demon reminds himself. They’ve miscommunicated their way through all of history. It was only honesty which led them to be tangled together, here, tonight. So, they proceed with honesty, the demon decides. Unfiltered honesty. 

“I…” he swallows, resets, tries again. “I’ve always had these thoughts about us, you know? Things I wanted, but thought would never happen. It’s just, you are my best friend and I was always too bloody terrified to-,” 

He cuts himself off, looks away; looks at the threadbare sofa, and familiar dusty shelves, and at the lamplight streaming in through the cracked bookshop window. It’s fine, he tells himself. He’s safe, here. He knows this place. He knows all the words and can identify all the feelings, and it is only Aziraphale, he tells himself. He’s only talking to Aziraphale. The angel won’t judge the way the words tangle in one another - or how short, or wrong they are. It is okay. 

He takes a deep breath, then turns back to his friend, currently wrapped to the shoulders in their soft wool blanket. Aziraphale looks somehow younger, without all the layers and the bow tie. Or perhaps it’s just the wideness of his eyes. 

Crowley swallows. 

“I didn’t expect this to happen, tonight,” he forces his voice to move slower, this time. Forces it to be sure. “But it has. And I’m glad. And it makes me think that all those things I’ve wanted for us might actually happen, one day.” He gives a shaky breath. “I… have a lot that I want to offer you, Aziraphale. Binding things. Lifelong things…” 

Aziraphale’s lips have parted, slightly, a dark sliver of red now visible between the two flushed smudges of pink. His eyes are very wide. He looks lovely. And terrified. 

“Crowley…” 

“And, while tonight was perfect, I know that is too fast, right now. I get that,” the demon soothes. “I probably shouldn’t even have brought it up, really, but I want you to know that I’m not pissing around. I mean this. I mean us.”

Aziraphale stares. 

It’s a lot, the demon thinks, feeling a surge of love at the overwhelmed expression on his best friend’s face. The things he wants to offer are too fast and too soon, for Aziraphale, and Crowley knows that. It is why he’s not fixing this offer in words - why he’s not on his knees, right now, making some grand gesture. He will, one day, he thinks. He’ll offer the angel everything, one day. All the Earthly and the supernatural things he can offer. He just needs them both to be in the right place, when he does. 

“I’m not asking you for you to say anything, now.” He murmurs, sliding his fingers around the edge of Aziraphale’s knee and giving it a squeeze. “I just want you to know that when - if - you’re ever ready, you can tell me. And… and I will offer you those things then. Okay?”

“Okay.” Aziraphale’s voice is very small. 

“And until then,” Crowley gives a long sigh, feeling the relief of having got it all out, without either of them sprinting from the room in panic. “I suppose we work this out same as any other new arrangement.”

That softens the angel’s expression. 

“Get drunk and negotiate terms, you mean?”

“Something like that.” 

“We might need rather a lot of mead…”

The demon gives a soft laugh. 

He can remember the last time he'd got drunk with the angel and negotiated terms. It had been beside a fireplace, down on the south coast of England. They set limits on The Arrangement to the tune of several kegs of dark, golden mead, and Aziraphale had got uproariously pissed. He’d been quite incoherent, by the end of it. He’d fallen asleep, with his cheek on Crowley’s shoulder. And the demon had stayed still until dawn, nursing his drink, imagining a world where that sort of contact might happen again. 

They live in that world, now, Crowley thinks, eyes tracing Aziraphale’s face. They can sit, tangled up together beside a fire, now, and Aziraphale will not pull away when he wakes. They made it, Crowley thinks, feeling very tight inside, all of a sudden. They really made it.

Clearing his throat, the demon averts the looming disaster of slightly prickling eyes and a tight throat by turning his head to look over at the clock, on the mantle. The hands show that it is only half past ten. The night is still young.

“Tell you what,” he says, blinking a couple of times, to clear his eyes, and then turning back to the angel. “Why don’t you take me down the pub and buy me a drink, and we can talk terms? I might even stay over, if you get me drunk enough,” he adds, because he can, now, and that fills him with joy. “You never know.”

The angel’s cheeks flush, and he nods. 

“Yes. I think I could do that.”

“Good.”

Carefully, they stand up and move around the room, gathering their clothes and folding their wings away. It’s a little awkward, at first, but also very tender. It’s the part of an evening that Crowley has always avoided, with other partners, but is surprised to find that he enjoys, with Aziraphale. 

There’s something very intimate, about watching the angel straighten the creases from his jacket - in helping him thread his bow tie back into place. It feels like an invite into a secret in-between space, in his life. A previously private time, now shared. And, thankfully, the resumption of their previous appearances does not come with a return to their previous roles. Or their previous distance. 

Aziraphale leans up, once he’s finished, to kiss the demon’s cheek. 

“Well. Shall we, then?” 

Crowley lets his eyes trail over his friend. 

“Yeah. One second, your hair is…” it’s even more ruffled even than usual. The demon can see the paths his fingers have trailed through it, can see the soft shadows of curls that have formed from the heat of their encounter. “ _Ngk_.” He makes a little noise, gives a shrug. “Never mind. It’s good.”

The angel’s face splits in a grin. 

“Yours is good, too.”

Crowley lifts a hand, reflexively, to his head, but Aziraphale intercepts it. 

“Don’t. You wear it well, my dear,” he pats the back of the angel’s wrist. “To be honest, you suit whatever you do with it. It’s very annoying, really.” Then, he gives Crowley a glowing, sparkling look, and steps away, towards the door. 

A little dazed, but happy to leave his hair alone for now, (until he inevitably catches sight of it in some storefront reflection and can’t help himself), Crowley follows. 

They step out into the street and lock the bookshop behind them. The noise of the night, outside, is more or less the same as when they left it. The humans are trailing in little groups along the pavements, heading in and out of bars and restaurants - heading out and heading home. There are couples and families and big sprawling units of them. 

Perhaps, he and Aziraphale can consider themselves something like that, now, Crowley thinks, feeling the angel turn at his shoulder and admire the scene. Perhaps, they can be some form of unit. A pair. A couple. A family. Maybe he’ll ask, later, if he gets drunk enough. 

Across the road, the Bentley gleams happily under a streetlamp - perhaps approving of this new development. (Or, perhaps, just glad that their argument ended well and it isn’t required to bang around north London for the rest of the night, demonically influencing the traffic flow). Crowley spares it a tiny smile, before looking around at his friend. 

“Where to, then?” 

Aziraphale frowns, pretending for half a second that he doesn’t already know where he wants to go. Then;

“Oooh, what about that little place, on Poland street?”

“Feeling fancy, angel?”

“I like the little booths, on the third floor.”

“Makes one feel like an ageing rockstar, dodging the public eye…” Crowley dramatises, as they start off in the direction of the bar. 

“That, and you can take your glasses off.” 

Crowley glances sharply back around at the angel. Is that really why Aziraphale likes that place? Because he gets to see his eyes? 

“You’ve just seen me without my glasses for a whole hour,” he teases, to cover the slightly warm feeling it has caused, in the pit of his stomach. “Did lots of gazing and everything.”

The angel smiles at the little flirt, then rearranges his face into a neutral expression. (Albeit a very smug neutral expression). 

“Well, I should like to remember that hour whilst having a drink. Is that acceptable to you?”

Crowley watches him for a moment, being a very shit demon. 

“Yes, angel.”

That’s going to be a refrain, he thinks. He’s going to spend the rest of his life saying ‘ _yes, angel_ ’. And he’s going to like it. Big, soft idiot that he is.

They wander along for half a minute in companionable silence, cars ‘sshhh'ing past and human voices garbling happily through the night air. Then a slight touch on Crowley’s elbow begs his attention. 

“Hm?” 

He finds Aziraphale watching him with slightly eager eyes. 

“Can I hold your hand?” 

_Oh fuck, oh fuck…_

“Uhhh…” Crowley blinks a few times, then withdraws his hand from his pocket, staring down at it a little stupidly. 

All the screaming, doubting fears he’s ever felt seem to roil over one another, for a moment - seething and scratching until they a peak inside his head. Then, the moment shatters. Some boundary is broken, deep within Crowley, and the fear begins to dissipate. Sliding off, into the night. 

Yes, he thinks. Yes, the angel can hold his hand. He will feel like a prat and will definitely require a stiff drink to gather himself, afterwards, but that’s okay. He can handle that. He _wants_ to handle that. 

“Bit risqué, isn’t it?” he comments, flicking an eyebrow at his friend - still not able to get through it without a healthy dose of sarcasm. “I mean, buggering me on your sofa is one thing, angel, but hand holding…” he pulls a face, makes a little noise.

Aziraphale blinks at him, looking slightly unsure, his cheeks shining in the neon light reflected from a nearby bar.

Feeling a surge of self deprecation and love, Crowley rolls his eyes. 

“Oh, come on…” He reaches out and takes his friend’s hand, feeing the reassuring warm weight of it beneath his fingers. The sensation causes a tightening swoop inside his belly, and an eager little judder of his heart. _Fuck yes,_ his useless brain chants _This. More of this._ “Give me your bleeding fingers. No-,” he rolls his eyes again, readjusting them so that their fingers interdigitate. “Not like that, I’m not your kid. Hold it properly, for Satan’s sake…” 

And the anxiety is fled from Aziraphale’s face, replaced only with warmth at his red-faced grumbling. And then, the angel is sliding a thumb over the back of Crowley’s hand, and gripping him tightly as he turns forwards, setting them once more in motion. 

And then they’re walking. Hand in hand. Along the pavement. Like a couple. And Crowley is feeling distinctly less aware of where his feet are, or how a person is supposed to stay upright, in this constantly spinning world. Gravity is working a bit strangely. And he’s got a lot of tingling nonsense going on, in his belly. The panicked mess of his brain is strangely silent, though. The contact seems to be suppressing it. 

Everything seems rather simpler, all of a sudden; condensed down to the feel of warm skin against his own. To soft palms pressed together, and strong fingers wrapped around the back of his knuckles, and a thumb, stroking him softly, repeatedly, lovingly.

_This_ , his useless brain murmurs. _More of this._

“I really do miss the joke, sometimes, don’t I?” The angel murmurs, softly, as they wander on, through Soho’s technicolour glow. “I suppose I’m just not very good at interpreting sarcasm. Which is odd, really, considering the amount of time I spend in your company.” 

Crowley says nothing. He’s fairly sure that faculty has fled, along with his fears. 

“I suppose drinks should be on me now, though,” the angel continues, shooting him a twinkling look - a more explicit version of those eyes he makes when he wants Crowley to fetch something, or fix something, or accompany him to some ridiculous new restaurant. 

It’s a flirt. It’s definitely a flirt. It’s just more overt, now. Or, maybe, Crowley is just feeling it more potently because of the improved context. Because he knows what those eyes look like, from just over his shoulder. Because he can still feel the faint burn of the angel, between his legs. 

“Mm?” He raises an eyebrow. He’s lost track of the conversation.

“That’s why it was funny, wasn’t it?” The angel asks him, smile quirking a bit further up on one side. “Your joke, about the bill. It was funny because people assume we’re together and that you go on top.” 

And Crowley closes his eyes, momentarily, because it’s all so much. He wants to laugh, and cry, and bury his face into Aziraphale’s neck. He wants to run away and also to stay here, in this moment, forever. 

He takes a breath. Opens his eyes again. Looks down at his friend. 

“Yup.” 

“And you don’t.”

Their eyes hold for a very long few seconds, then Crowley dips his head, slightly. 

“Nope.” 

Aziraphale smiles at him, softly, then turns to face forwards, once more. 

They walk along for another ten seconds, the angel swinging their hands slightly - in a sort of absent, contented way that makes it feel as if they’ve been doing this forever. (Which makes Crowley’s insides do all sorts of useless, wibbly shit). The moment feels comfortable. The sort of comfortable where even a deeply repressed, slightly terrified demon can volunteer information. 

He lets out a slow, calming breath. 

“It’s about eighty/twenty.”

“Hmm?” 

“Me. In bed,” Crowley clarifies. “Or, not… bed, necessarily, but… you know..." He eyes the angel, taking in his pleased little smile. He suspects that Aziraphale isn’t at all surprised that he keeps his options open. He’s never committed to one gender or one body, after all… why would he restrict himself to one position? “About twenty percent on top. But it depends how I’m feeling. You?”

“Probably about the same,” his friend admits, then frowns and gesticulates circularly, with his free hand, “the opposite way around.”

“…think we should be surprised?”

“What?” Aziraphale smiles. “That we’re opposites?”

“Mm.” 

The angel gives a soft little laugh, flashes Crowley another twinkling look, then turns to face forwards again, steering them on, down the road. 

“No. I think we’ve always fit, haven’t we?”

“Yeah…” the demon feels a rush of calm. A rush of completion. “We have, a bit.”

They walk on. Hand in hand. 

“I suppose it makes sense, really,” the angel muses, to the night.

Crowley pulls a face. 

“You’re not going to start talking about predestination again, are you?”

“Maybe,” the angel chuckles. “Depends how much we have to drink.”

“Then I think I’m going to need a lot to drink.”

“Then, you shall have a lot to drink,” the angel smiles. “And we can argue about a lot of things that don’t matter. And then, if you’re amenable, a few things that do.” He strokes his thumb once more over Crowley’s hand, glances up at him. “And Crowley?”

“Mm?” 

“What you were saying earlier… about what you’d offer me when, or if, I was ready?”

The demon feels his insides clench slightly. 

“Yeah?”

“It will be ‘when’, not ‘if’.” Aziraphale’s eyes are soft and sure. And his hand is warm in Crowley’s own. “I mean this, too. Us. I want you to know that.”

Crowley gives a reflexive little nod. 

“Mhhnm.”

“Okay…” 

They wander along a few steps, looking at one another, only breaking eye contact when Crowley very nearly wanders into a lamppost and has to do an evasive hop to get around it. When he looks back around, the angel is still watching him as if he were the sun.  


This whole thing was going to do marvellous things for his ego, the demon thinks. And possibly dangerous things to his heart. 

“I love you.” 

He nearly falls off the pavement.

“Fuck, Aziraphale…” he grumbles, as he gathers his feet again. “Bit of warning, next time.”

“I'm afraid you’re just going to have to get used it,” the angel sighs, not sounding at all apologetic, in Crowley’s opinion. “I adore you. Quite unequivocally.”

Crowley trips slightly over a curb. 

“Bloody hell…”

His friend gives a little smile. 

“Come on.” He gives the demon’s hand a squeeze. “Let’s get you that drink.”

“Yeah, might be for the best…”

“Come on.” 

Hands still grasped, they wander off, into the night. 

.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me lurking on [IG](https://www.instagram.com/heycaricari/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heycaricari), and [Tumblr](https://heycaricari.tumblr.com/) @heycaricari
> 
> Please engage me in conversation. Promise I'll put an avatar up at some point to make myself look less creepy...


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